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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29132022">A Life Ahead</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfMonstersAndWerewolves/pseuds/OfMonstersAndWerewolves'>OfMonstersAndWerewolves</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Killing in Self-Defense, International Fanworks Day 2021, Post-Prison, Prison, Prison AU, Self-Defense, due to knightrook being fairly rare rather than the overall fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:41:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>376</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29132022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfMonstersAndWerewolves/pseuds/OfMonstersAndWerewolves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>17 years ago, Alice Jones got out from under her mother's grasp, only to wind up in prison for it. But could release finally be within reach...?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Wishverse Captain Hook | Detective Rogers &amp; Alice Jones | Tilly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Life Ahead</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I came up with this idea a while ago and earlier today had a burst of inspiration and finished it. So here it is!</p>
<p>Hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d killed her. </p>
<p>She hadn’t even meant to. She’d simply wanted to escape. The thought of it turned her stomach, even now. She’d had a long time to think it through, and yet she still hadn’t got a grasp on her feelings about the whole thing.</p>
<p>She’d killed her abuser in self defense. Gothel. The name printed on her birth certificate under ‘Mother’. But the system hadn’t cared. It still didn’t. And now here she was, seventeen years later, seven in solitary confinement, waiting to hear news on the chance to appeal.</p>
<p>A dream. Too good to be true?</p>
<p>Her father was out there somewhere, fighting on her behalf. She couldn’t really do much herself inside, but he’d spent years trying to get her out. Appealing. Campaigning. Doing whatever he could. And though his fighting hadn’t been futile in the grander scheme of things - building up solidarity with other people in similiar situations, helping others get out - it hadn’t succeeded in doing the one thing he’d set out to do.</p>
<p>Until now.</p>
<p>There’d been a breakthrough.</p>
<p>Could it be? Was there much point in hoping for it, when so many other times had lead to dead ends?</p>
<p>Perhaps not.</p><hr/>
<p>They weren’t real.</p>
<p>They couldn’t be.</p>
<p>She’d wake up soon, back in that cell.</p>
<p>They weren’t real.</p>
<p>How could they be?</p>
<p>And yet they felt so real. She remembered running to her papa. Into his arms. But they couldn’t be real.</p>
<p>Could they?</p>
<p>His arms. Wrapped around her. </p>
<p>Comfort.</p>
<p>She lifted her head up from his chest and stared into his eyes again, silent. Just looking into them. Seeing joy in them for the first time in what felt like forever. There was still pain. A sad pain. But a different sad pain. Not the despair of before, with waning hope desperately clinging on.</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>This was a much different pain. One that clawed at the lost life – the life that could have been – if only the system had come to this conclusion earlier. A pain swathed in anger that it happened at all. But a pain bathed in relief. Of joy. A joyous pain, that lives could be turned anew. Could be lived. Could be loved. Fully. A life ahead.</p>
<p>They’d get through it.</p>
<p>Together.</p>
<p>Finally.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading!</p>
<p>For HA fans, I am now continuing to work on it! Huzzah! I don't think Chapter 9 will be as long as recent ones, so hopefully I'll have it out this month.</p>
<p>Stay safe everyone! :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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